That wasn't the handshake Murray went into the weekend hoping for. And try as he did, he was unable to consummate a trade to give centre Jason Spezza his wish to leave Ottawa.

"I called the teams or took calls from teams that were interested," Murray said Saturday. "We talked about the return, the type of deal we wanted to make. In a couple of cases there was real interest and it went away. So I don't know whether it was because of the draft and on the day of the draft picks are very valuable, whether that was part of it or it was something different."

Murray wanted a first-round pick, a roster player and a prospect for his captain, who has a limited no-trade clause and thus the power to refuse to go to 10 teams. One of those 10 is Nashville, which had a deal worked out to get Spezza that couldn't go through because he didn't agree to go to the Predators.

"David (Poile) talked to me and we couldn't go there," Murray said. "I told (Spezza's agent) Rick Curran that today, I had a deal sitting there if I wanted to do it, but he was on the list of no-go's."

A Senators-Predators deal might've landed Ottawa the 11th pick. Instead, Poile pulled the trigger on getting winger James Neal from the Pittsburgh Penguins for Patric Hornqvist and Nick Spaling.

Considering that and the Anaheim Ducks' trade with the Vancouver Canucks for centre Ryan Kesler, Murray knows that "the field narrows a little bit."

Murray estimated that he talked to four or five teams about Spezza and that three expressed fairly serious interest. It never worked out, leaving everyone in the situation still hanging.

“I'm sure it's disappointing for him, it's disappointing for me because I'd like to accommodate him if I could, but he does have a year left on his contract," Murray said. "If that's the case we'll have a pretty good player for next year."

Or it's possible that teams circle back to the Senators after July 1 if they don't land Paul Stastny or another free-agent centre. As far as Ottawa's approach to the start of free agency, that's affected by Spezza, too.

"I don't know, that's the problem," Murray said. "Part of your decision is what can you spend, where does it fit and what do you get in return for a certain player? If you don't know that, then it's harder."

Unable to get anything done on the Spezza front, the Senators made five picks to stock up for the future. They took defenceman Andreas Englund 40th, defenceman Miles Gendron 70th, forward Shane Eiserman 100th, defenceman Kelly Summers 189th and left-winger Francis Perron 190th.

The 189th pick, a seventh-rounder, Ottawa got from the Winnipeg Jets for a 2015 sixth-rounder. That was the only trade Murray was able to make in Philadelphia.

"It just seemed to me there were a lot of phone calls, a lot of talking, people interested, but nothing really happened," he said. "I had to make one trade at the end, a seventh-round pick for the sixth next year just to say I did something. So that was my accomplishment."

Not that it was his fault, but I think Murray is kind of backing himself into a corner here. Two teams in the market for Spezza are not out of it. I'm wondering if this will be a similar thing to Kesler, where the Canucks got less in return for him than they would have liked because Kesler only had two places on his list.

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_________________“It makes no difference what men think of war, said the judge. War endures. As well ask men what they think of stone. War was always here. Before man was, war waited for him. The ultimate trade awaiting its ultimate practitioner. That is the way it was and will be. That way and not some other way.”

If The Blues weren't going to get Stastny AND Spezza, I'd surely have rather had Spezza land with The Preds than with The Stars. But, considering what Army added to the team and subtracted from the team this offseason, and the draft, too, I can't complain. I don't really think Spezza will play more than 55-60 games, considering his back problems and the physical toll The NHL Western Conference teams take on opposing centres. I'm glad that The Blues are going with their deep, young team, and they didn't give up a bunch of futures to grab Spezza. THAT would certainly hurt them down the line 3-5 years when their prospect cupboard is bare, (and, not to mention when Spezza's salary starts to keep them from re-signing their young stars).

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